Slowly but surely making my way through #ChristianKane/Christian Kane's IMDb credits list and watching all of his movies/TV shows! Haven't seen so far I haven't liked! Just watched Crossfire Trail with Tom Selleck as the lead actor.Have loved everything he has done as well. Have been a fan of both of theirs for a long while. So sorry though that Christian's JT LANGSTON came to that ending. Heartbreaking scene he did a wonderful job on. Have to confess no, I did not read the book so I can't make comparisons to it. That being said it was just the kind of movie I love. It was touching, romantic, western with a touch of action and endearing. The good guys won the day! And a little revenge there at the end was well deserved! Mark Harmon made a great bad guy, he had me scared! Wilfred Brimley,oh man just love the guy! This is one movie I just didn't want to end,but I would have had had to had Christian Kane come back as twin to JT or something HAHA! I highly recommend this movie! Family Friendly! (couple of shoot out scenes though) If you haven't seen it.. you should!

Guess I have to blame it mostly on book author Louis l'Amour. I was disappointed in the one dimensional characterizations, especially of the baddies, and the very familiar formulistic plot, where the contested woman initially falls for the familiar handsome urbane, locally powerful, but discretely evil baddie and is initially put off by the overtures of the unfamiliar, unwashed cowboy who wanders or intrudes into her life, and ultimately saves her from being shackled to the baddie or cheated out of her substantial inheritance(both in this film).One look at Mark Harmon and I knew he had to be the oily boss of the baddies. Strange he's listed at the bottom of your list of players?!The main characters were well cast and the marvelously photographed mountains and plains Alberta landscape largely makes up for the predictable or deficient screenplay. Wilford Brimley makes a loyal, if overweight and non too animated, sidekick. With his long hair, dark looks, robust body, and generally serious manner, Selleck looked like he might be a fearsome badman. Thank goodness, his character instead personified l'Amour's standard hero :well practiced in all cowboy skills, tough with his fists, exceptional with firearms and horses, used to right wrongs. Seems that the husband of Anne Rodney traveled from his huge northern WY ranch to SF to get some money to pay off the mortgage note being held by Mark Harmon's Bruce Barkow. The story going around is that Anne's husband was ambushed on the way back by Sioux, who took his body, and has presumbably been dead for a year. On the other hand, Selleck's Rafe Covington much more recently was with him when he died from a brutal beating by the captain of the ship on which he and Covington had been serving as shanghaied hands. He requested Covington to go take care of his ranch and wife for a while. After beating up the captain, Covington and a couple of partners abandoned the ship, near shore, bought some horses and rode to this ranch, which looked rundown. Covington encountered Anne in town who disbelieved his story and was not thrilled to learn he was preparing to get the ranch back on its feet, fearing he might be planning to try to steal it while she is busy in town teaching school. Reeking with thinly disguised sarcasm toward detailed eye witness descriptions of Rodney's demise, the nosy Covington soon makes enemies of Barkow's evil henchmen. Drunk, one challenges him to a street gun duel. Laughably, he misses Covington's broad back several times, before the latter turns around to give a demo of marksmanship. This prompts Barkow to send for a famous gunslinger(silent, self absorbed, dressed in all black , with distinctive flat hat, sporting a huge telescopic sight for his custom-made rifle) to take care of Covington and his 3 friends.Of course, we know that eventually Covington and friends will have a showdown or two with Barkow and his gang, whom we suspect were involved in the robbery of Anne's husband before he was shanghaied. We also know that widow Anne will eventually see Barkow for the monster that he is behind his suave exterior, and switch her allegiance to the unlikely fearsome-looking Covington, who buys the rifle Rodney special ordered, to do in most of the baddies.The main showdown occurs in town with various participants hiding behind windows or outside at the corner of buildings, etc. : very dangerous for other townies, if not terribly novel in westerns. Covington and friends even release the cattle from the pen at the edge of town to add more confusion and danger to the scene. At least they didn't stampede through the town, as in some westerns. See the film to discover the meaning of my review title. The scene in which Barkow drags Anne across the street, caveman style, to force her to go through a marriage ceremony before a crowd is especially unbelievable. This finally demonstrates his true motive in pursuing her and how cruel he is. Prior to this, Barkow had the bought marshal charge Covington and friend with raping the daughter of chief Red Cloud, to cover up her presumed rape by 3 of his gang, who presumably broke her leg in the process. This is a bizarre move since Covington did a crude reset of her leg(we could hear the crunch of the bones)after discovering her predicament and made friends with Red Cloud who happening along just then. For a woman in such a state, she seemed remarkably well dressed and calm when two other unknown white men came upon her out in the bush. In any case, this incident served to further characterize Barkow's gang as thoroughly cruel and opportunistic. Presently, part of a small Tom Selleck westerns DVD collection.

I am surprised this got such a high user rating vote here. Wishful thinking and blindness to the movie's faults must account for it.The beginning of the movie was confusing and unnecessary. Then things got better and interesting. Then the movie slowly and surely gets worse and worse. It developed into an unbelievable mess with bits and pieces reminiscent of better movies (saving the Indian princess, hiring the famous out-of-town killer with the black outfit, the town folk rising up at the end to defend justice, driving cattle into town during a gunfight, etc. -- Blahh!). This is the worst Tom Selleck or TV western that I can recall.Good were: the cinematography, isolated dialogue and scholarly allusions and most of the acting. Mark Harmon gave his usual adept and likable performance, IF HE WERE IN A DIFFERENT MOVIE.Everything else was quite poor. I blame the screenplay and direction most. Harmon's character's actions were so over the top and incredible, it was shocking. Unbelievable and poorly motivated were almost everything -- the men working a ranch that wasn't theirs, the mortgage on the place, the "courtship" of Madsen, the death of her husband, etc. The tactics and movements in the gun fights were silly/unconvincing. Another thing I didn't like, but typical of many movies, is that Selleck and Madsen didn't initially have an honest conversation dealing with all the facts of the situation; instead they let the information drag out in bits and pieces to prolong the story.

As a western star, selleck is right up there with john wayne. He has wayne's size and no nonsense no talk attitude. Nevertheless, this is not a great movie since the story is as old as the hills. As usual, the real stars here are the villains and mark harmon and brad johnson do a great job there. Virginia madsen plays the damsel in distress but was disappointing since she, at least in this movie, is not that pretty. The big shootout is something of a joke. As in all westerns you have gunmen hiding behind the flimsiest of barricades while blasting away. How is a wagon wheel gonna protect you? A couple of the bad guys just stand behind the swinging doors to the saloon and fire away! The wood must be all of a quarter inch thick. I give this movie a B.